Vol.  I.  September  i,  1889.  No.  11. 


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Popular  Evolution  Essays  and  Lectures. 


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CONTENTS   or  THIS  NUMMER: 

EVOLUTION   OF  MORALS 

BY 

LEWIS   G.  JANES 

Author  of  "A  Study  of  Phimitive  Christianity,"  "The  Evolution 
OF  the  Earth,"  etc.,  etc. 


The  eye  reads  omens  where  it  goes, 
And  speaks  all  languages  the  rose ; 
And,  striving  to  be  man,  the  worm 
Mounts  through  all  the  spires  of  form. 

—Nature,  i.,  7. 

The  fos8il  strata  sliow  us  that  Nature  began  with  rudimental  forms,  and  rose 
to  the  more  complex  as  fast  as  the  earth  was  fit  for  their  dwelling-place ;  and 
that  the  lower  perish  as  the  higher  appear.  Very  few  of  our  race  can  be  said  to 
be  yet  finished  men.  We  still  carry  sticking  to  us  some  remains  of  the  preced- 
ing" inferior  quadruped  organization.  .  .  The  age  of  the  quadruped  is  to  go  out, 
— the  age  of  the  brain  and  of  the  heart  is  to  come  in.  And  if  one  shall  read  the 
future  of  the  race  hinted  in  the  organic  effort  of  Nature  to  mount  and  melior- 
ate, and  the  corresponding  impulse  to  the  Better  in  the  human  being,  we  shall 
dare  aftimi  that  there  is  nothing  he  will  not  overcome  and  convert,  until  at  last 
culture  shall  absorb  the  chaos  and  gehenna.  He  will  convert  the  Furies  into 
Muses  and  the  hells  into  benefit.—  Culture. 

—Ralph  Waldo  Emebson. 


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Entered  at  Post-office,  Boston,  for  mailing  at  second-class  postal  rates. 


PROSPECTUS    OF    THE    BROOKLYN    SERIES. 


1.  Herbert  Spencer :  His  life,  writings,  and  philosophy. 

By  Mr.  Daniel  Grcenleaf  Thompson. 

2.  Charles  Robert  Darwin:  His  life,  works,  and  influence. 

By  llev.  John  W.  Chadwick. 

3.  Solar  and  Planetary  Evolution :  How  suns  and  worlds  come 

into  being.  By  Mr.  Garrett  P.  Serviss. 

4.  Evolution  of  the  Earth :  The  story  of  geology. 

I3y  Dr.  Lewis  G.  Janes. 

5.  Evolution  of  Vegetal  Life :  By  Mr.  William  Potts. 

6.  Evolution  of  Animal  Life:  By  Dr.  Rossiter  W.  Raymond. 

7.  The  Descent  of  Man :  His  origin,  antiquity,  growth. 

By  Prof.  E.  D.  Cope. 

8.  Evolution  of  Mind :  Its  nature  and  development. 

By  Dr.  Robert  G.  Eccles. 

9.  Evolution  of  Society :  Families,  tribes,  states,  classes. 

By  Mr.  James  A.  Skilton. 

10.  Evolution  of  Theology  :  Development  of  religious  beliefs. 

By  Mr.  Z.  Sidney  Sampson. 

11.  Evolution  of  Morals:  Egoism,  altruism,  utilitarianism,  etc. 

By  Dr.  Lewis  G.  Janes. 

12.  Proofs  of  Evolution :  The  eight  main  scientific  arguments. 

By  Mr.  Nelson  C.  Parshall. 

13.  Evolution  as  Related  to  Religious  Thought. 

By  Rev.  John  W.  Chadwick. 

14.  The  Philosophy  of  Evolution  :  Its  relation  to  prevailing  systems. 

By  Mr.  Starr  H.  Nichols. 

15.  The  Effects  of  Evolution  on  the  Coming  Civilization. 

By  Rev.  Minot  J.  Savage. 

To  be  followed  by  other  Lectures  and  Essays,  of  similar  explanatory  and  con- 
structive tenor,  based  on  modern  scientific  research  and  attainment. 

Subscriptions  for  the  Fifteen  Lectures  above  enumerated  will  be  received  for 
$1.5(). 

Single  copies  of  any  lecture,  as  published,  may  be  had  for  10  cents  each. 

Address  The  New  Ideal  Company. 


BROOKLYN 

ETHICAL  ASSOCIATION 


EVOLUTION    ESSAYS 
XI. 


Tlir.  Ui5RARV  , 


V 


EVOLUTION   OF   MORALS  x 


BY 

LEWIS    G.    JANES 

Author  of  "A  Study  of  Primitive  Christianity,"  "The  Evolution 
OF  THE  Earth,"  etc.,  etc. 


BOSTON  : 

THE  NEW  IDEAL  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

EsTES  Press  Building,  192  Summer  St. 

1889 


C^ 


PREFACE. 

The  publication  of  the  series  of  essays  on  Evolution,  delivered 
tinder  the  auspices  of  the  Brooklyn  Ethical  Association,  is  under- 
taken in  response  to  a  general  and  increasing  demand  for  a  correct 
statement,  in  popular  form,  of  the  leading  ideas,  inferences  and 
tendencies  involved  in  the  acceptance  of  the  Evolution  Philosoi^hy, 
together  with  a  clear  statement  of  the  main  lines  of  evidence  or 
proof  by  which  the  conception  of  Evolution  is  sustained.  The 
plan  of  the  series  involves  not  only  the  treatment  of  the  physical 
and  biological  phases  of  the  svibject,  but  also  its  ethical,  social, 
religious  and  philosophical  aspects — the  whole  to  be  introduced 
by  biographical  sketches  of  the  two  great  men  of  our  own  time 
whose  names  are  most  intimately  associated  with  the  Evolution 
hypothesis. 

As  to  the  selection  and  arrangement  of  topics  in  the  programme 
of  the  Ethical  Association,  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  says  :  "  The  mode 
of  presentation  seems  to  me  admirably  adapted  for  popularizing  Ev- 
olution views";  and  Mr.  John  Fiske  writes,  "I  think  your 
schedule  attractive  and  valuable. ' '  The  essayists  have  been  selected 
with  care,  with  special  reference  to  the  character  of  the  topics  to 
be  treated.  It  is  hoped  that  the  publication  of  these  lectures  may 
aid  societies  and  individuals  throughout  the  country,  in  organiz- 
ing and  conducting  classes  in  the  study  of  Evolution,  and  thereby 
prepare  many  minds  for  an  intelligent  and  systematic  perusal  of 
the  more  voluminous  and  scientific  works  of  Darwin,  Spencer,  and 
other  standard  authorities. 

The  different  phases  of  the  subject  are  treated  in  this  series  in 
a  certain  natural  order  of  succession,  which  the  student  and  reader 
will  do  well  to  follow  in  the  perusal  of  the  lectures. 

L.  G.  J. 


EVOLUTION    OF    MORALS.* 


^^  Virtue  is  the  adherence  in  action  to  the  nature  of  thinys,  and  the 
nature  of  thinys  makes  it  prevalent.'''' 

Kalph  Waldo  Emeksox  :  Spiritual  Laws. 

It  lias  been  tersely  said  that  ''the  moral  is  the  measure 
of  health."  This  is  true  not  only  of  man,  but  of  ideas,  of 
institutions,  of  religions,  and  of  philosophical  systems. 
These,  too,  are  rightly  regarded  with  suspicion  if  found 
wanting  Avhen  subjected  to  the  moral  test.  A  system  of 
thought  doubtless  finds  its  ultimate  sanctions  in  evidences 
appealing  to  the  intellect ;  but  any  apparent  deficiencies  on 
the  ethical  side,  affecting  the  guidance  of  conduct  and  the 
development  of  character,  should  justly  subject  its  claims 
to  renewed  and  rigid  scrutiny.  That  only  is  completely 
reasonable  which  is  sane,  healthy,  moral. 

It  is  precisely  on  this  ground  that  the  Evolution  philos- 
ophy has  been  most  violently  assailed  by  its  critics.  This 
fact,  however,  should  not  of  itself  create  distrust  of  the 
essential  validity  of  the  philosophy.  Such  assaults  have 
been  the  common  fate  of  all  new  systems  of  thought,  since 
man  began  to  drop  the  plummets  of  his  reason  into  the 
ocean-depths  of  his  physical  and  psychical  being  and  envir- 
onment. To  the  conservative  mind,  the  new  and  untrodden 
path  always  seems  full  of  dangers.  The  turn-pike  road  of 
the  fathers  is  the  safe  and  narrow  way.  The  engineer  who 
sets  out  through  the  wilderness  to  survey  a  path  for  the 
iron  rails,  is  committing  an  act  of  sacrilege  and  impiety. 
Seeing  that  this  is  so,  it  behooves  us  nevertheless  to  look 
well  to  the  ethical  foundations  of  this  new  doctrine  of 
Evolution.  The  welfare  of  men  and  of  kingdoms  may  depend 
upon  cheir  stability  and  strength. 

The  present  age  is  a  period  of  transition.  Old  sanctions 
are  being  undermined.  Man  fronts  the  Universe  and  the 
problems  of  life  in  a  new  attitude.  The  revolution  in  thought 
through  which  we  are  passing  has  been  well  termed,  by 

*  COPYBIGHT,  1889,  by  The  New  Ideal  Publishing  Co. 


258  Evolution  of  Morals. 

Mr.  Savage,  "  A  change  of  front  of  the  Universe."  It  is 
the  passage  of  man,  in  his  mental  estate,  from  dependent 
childhood  to  self-reliant  manhood  —  always  a  critical  and 
dangerous  period  in  the  history  of  the  individual,  none  the 
less  critical  and  dangerous  in  the  life  of  a  nation  or  a  civil- 
ization. Heretofore  the  ethical  systems  of  the  world  have, 
in  the  main,  rested  on  the  sanctions  of  theology  —  upon 
man's  thought  of  God  —  instead  of  upon  the  Divine  Reality 
as  revealed  in  the  nature  of  things.  It  has  been  assumed 
that  man's  supreme  obligations  were  due  to  God  or  the  gods, 
as  he  conceived  them,  and  that  they  were  enforced  by  a  sys- 
tem of  rewards  and  penalties  to  be  bestowed  or  inflicted  in 
a  future  state  of  existence.  The  new  philosophy  affirms 
that  man's  primary  obligation  is  to  his  fellow-man  —  that 
duty  grows  out  of  the  necessities  of  social  communion ;  that 
it  is  founded  in  the  nature  of  things,  instead  of  in  the 
arbitrary  will  of  an  absent  deity ;  that  its  penalties  are  not 
extrinsic  but  intrinsic  —  that  they  are  registered  immedi- 
ately on  the  tablets  of  character,  and  their  enforcement  is 
dependent  upon  no  speculative  beliefs,  whatever  may  be 
the  theological  implications  involved  in  such  beliefs.  The 
old  sanctions,  resting  on  theology,  are  losing  their  force 
and  efficacy  in  all  thinking  minds.  A  few  only,  as  yet, 
comprehend  the  significance  and  bearing  of  modern  scien- 
tific thought,  and  especially  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution, 
upon  the  foundations  of  morality ;  hence  the  assumed  and 
not  altogether  imaginary  danger  of  a  "  moral  interregnum  " 
—  a  temporary  lapse  into  laxity  of  thought  and  depravity 
of  life. 

Intuitional  metaphysics  joins  with  theology  in  the  at- 
tempt to  discredit  the  foundations  of  evolutionary  ethics. 
The  sanctions  of  morality,  it  declares,  rest  not  indeed  upon 
the  arbitrary  mandates  of  deity,  but  upon  the  nature  of  the 
human  mind.  The  sense  of  obligation  is  a  primary  intui- 
tion of  consciousness.  II!  has  had  no  causal  genesis — no 
historical  evolution.  Its  "  ought "  is  the  "  categorical  im- 
perative," which  cannot  be  analyzed,  scientifically  investi- 
gated, or  traced  to  any  less  definite  or  coherent  substratum 
of  primitive  impulse.  The  intuitive  system  appeals  for 
rational  recognition  by  its  fundamental  assumption  of  the 
supremacy  of  reason,  and  affirms  its  competence  to  deal  with 
the  problems  of  philosophy  and  psychology  by  the  deductive 
or  a  priori  method,  independent  of  the  facts  of  experience. 


Evolution  of  Morals.  259 

In  ethics,  it  rejects  as  incompetent  all  moral  judgments 
based  upon  experiential  tests. 

The  actual  bearing  of  the  doctrine  thus  assailed,  upon 
ethical  sanctions,  may  best  be  understood  by  the  study  of 
its  theory  of  the  genesis  and  development  of  the  moral 
sense.  It  should  be  said  at  the  outset,  however,  that  the 
leading  representatives  of  the  new  school  of  thought  by  no 
means  admit  the  validity  of  these  charges  of  their  critics. 
The  evolution  philosophy  affirms  the  supremacy  of  ethics, 
and  makes  moral  science  the  culmination  of  its  entire  sys- 
tem of  thought.  "  My  ultimate  purpose,"  says  Mr.  Spencer, 
in  his  preface  to  the  Data  of  Ethics,  "lying  behind  all 
proximate  purposes,  has  been  that  of  finding  for  the  princi- 
ples of  right  and  wrong,  in  conduct  at  large,  a  scientific 
basis."  In  its  investigation  of  morals,  the  new  philosophy 
lays  its  foundation  upon  the  solid  rock  of  fact,  as  revealed 
in  human  experience.  Its  ethical  structure  does  not  rest 
upon  a  cloud-fabric  of  theological  or  metaphysical  assump- 
tion, but  upon  human  nature  itself — upon  man's  natural 
desire  and  effort  to  make  the  most  of  life,  both  in  its  per- 
sonal and  its  social  aspects,  and  upon  the  observed  good  or 
evil  effects  of  actions,  judged  by  this  practical  test.  In 
collecting  and  collating  its  facts,  it  follows  the  scientific 
method  —  studying  man  as  he  exists  to-day,  and  as  he  has 
existed  throughout  the  entire  period  of  his  evolution.  As 
in  the  field  of  the  physical  sciences,  commencing  with  the 
historical  era,  it  prolongs  its  vision  into  prehistoric  times 
by  a  legitimate  use  of  the  scientific  imagination.  By  the 
study  of  savage  races  and  the  investigation  of  language  and 
archaeological  remains,  it  forms  a  vivid  conception  of  man 
as  he  was  gradually  outgrowing  the  inheritance  of  his  brute 
ancestry,  and  progressing  toward  civilization. 

Even  more  deeply  than  this,  the  Evolution  philosophy 
searches  for  facts  on  which  to  rest  its  science  of  morals. 
It  perceives  that  moral  conduct  is  only  a  part  of  a  larger 
whole  —  conduct  in  general.  It  is  necessary,  therefore,  to 
study  conduct  first  in  its  universal  aspect,  in  order  rightly 
to  estimate  the  nature  and  status  of  ethical  conduct.  Con- 
duct may  be  tersely  defined,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Spencer, 
as  "  acts  adjusted  to  ends."  *  It  includes  only  those  actions 
which  are  accompanied  by  volition,  excluding  those  which 
are  automatic  and  mechanical.     In  the  lower  forms  of  or- 

*  Spencer's  Data  of  Ethics. 


260  Evolution  of  Morals. 

ganic  life,  consciousness  is  vague,  indefinite,  and  protoplasmic 
—  limited  to  mere  sentience  in  its  most  primitive  and  undif- 
ferentiated form.  Such  organisms  manifest  but  little  evi- 
dence of  definite,  conscious  purpose.  Their  action  is  mainly- 
automatic,  in  response  to  external  stimuli.  The  polyp  has 
no  special  organs  of  sense ;  it  does  not  even  seek  intelli- 
gently for  its  food,  or  manifest  a  definite  purpose  to  propa- 
gate its  kind.  Its  action  is  more  like  that  of  a  vegetable 
than  a  conscious  being.  Attached  to  a  support,  it  appro- 
priates suitable  articles  of  nourishment  whenever  they  are 
brought  in  contact  with  it  by  the  action  of  external  forces. 
It  propagates  its  race  by  gemmation  or  budding,  like  a 
vegetable  organism.  The  diiferentiation  of  purposeful 
actions,  as  we  ascend  the  scale  of  being,  is  a  gradual  and 
progressive  process  —  a  process  of  evolution.  With  greater 
complexity  of  structure,  we  find  an  ever-increasing  number 
of  purposeful  actions,  directed  toward  definite  and  intelligi- 
ble ends.  Food  is  intelligently  sought,  instead  of  being 
passively  appropriated  from  accidental  contact.  Dangers 
are  intentionally  avoided.  Life  becomes  less  the  sport  of 
accident  —  comes  more  and  more  within  the  scope  of  intelli- 
gent volition.  The  probability  of  fulfilling  its  natural 
period  steadily  increases  as  we  advance  from  infusorium  to 
ascidian,  from  ascidian  to  fish,  from  fish  to  reptile,  from 
reptile  to  mammal,  from  brute  to  man.  Life  not  only  in- 
creases in  relative  duration,  but  also  in  breadth  or  amount. 
Conduct  increases  in  complexity  as  it  reaches  successively 
higher  stages  of  evolution.  In  estimating  the  relative  posi- 
tion of  an  organism  in  the  scale  of  being,  we  must  consider 
not  merely  the  length  of  its  life,  but  rather  the  sum  of  its 
vital  activities.  The  elephant  lives  longer  than  man,  but 
it  does  not  live  as  much  as  man.  Its  activities  are  fewer, 
its  adjustments  of  acts  to  ends  less  definite  and  numerous. 
This  principle  of  the  gradual  evolution  of  conduct  in  defi- 
niteness  and  complexity  applies  not  only  to  conduct  in  gen- 
eral, but  also,  evidently,  to  those  volitional  acts  which 
constitute  the  yet  undifferentiated  protoplasm  of  moral 
conduct. 

The  primary  motive  which  governs  the  purposeful  actions 
of  the  lower  organisms  is  the  desire  for  self-preservation. 
Their  voluntary  movements  are  directed  to  securing  nutri- 
ment, and  to  escaping  from  dangers  which  threaten  to 
terminate    their  existence.      Propagating  with  marvelous 


Evolution  of  Morals.  261 

rapidity,  the  contest  for  existence  forces  them  into  compe- 
tition and  conflict  Avith  their  kind,  as  well  as  into  the 
struggle  against  the  inertia  or  opposition  of  natural  forces. 
Thus  the  problem  of  life  steadily  increases  in  complexity. 
It  demands  greater  activities  of  mind  and  body,  and  the 
demand  induces  the  supply.  Out  of  the  desire  and  purpose 
to  live,  and  the  conflict  consequent  upon  action  in  accordance 
with  that  purpose, —  the  inter-action  of  intelligent  volition 
in  the  organism  and  the  stress  of  environing  conditions, — 
have  grown  all  the  splendors  of  the  intellectual  activities, 
all  the  diversified  wonders  of  organic  structure  and  function. 

As  intelligence  increases,  it  is  at  length  naturally  per- 
ceived that  the  welfare  of  the  individual  organism  is  largely 
dependent  upon  the  preservation  and  perpetuation  of  the 
race.  The  latter  end,  after  a  time,  to  some  degree  supplants 
the  primitive  impulse  for  self-preservation  as  a  conscious 
motive  for  voluntary  effort.  In  the  lowest  organisms  the 
race  is  perpetuated  without  conscious  purpose  —  sometimes 
by  fission,  or  automatic  sub-division,  each  section  or  part  of 
an  original  unitary  organism  forming,  when  separated,  an 
independent  individual.  This  process  is  automatically  ini- 
tiated whenever  increasing  size  in  the  organism,  or  dimin- 
ished food-supply,  renders  nourishment  too  difficult;  or 
when  other  physical  conditions  over  which  the  organism 
has  no  voluntary  control,  operate  to  produce  a  like  result. 
The  action  is  purely  instinctive  and  purposeless.  Higher 
in  the  scale  of  being,  intelligence  co-operates  more  and  more 
with  inherited  instinct  in  securing  race-perpetuation.  Off- 
spring require  and  receive  more  care.  Many  of  the  higher 
animals  will  risk  their  own  lives,  or  deprive  themselves  of 
food,  to  protect  or  feed  their  mates  or  their  young  during  the 
breeding  season. 

Accepting  the  Darwinian  account  of  man's  origin,*  we 
must  conceive  of  him  as  emerging  from  brutehood  possessed 
of  these  two  inherited  instincts  of  self-preservation  and 
race-perpetuation.  The  historical  period  evidently  consti- 
tutes but  the  smallest  fraction  of  the  time  during  which  he 
has  existed  on  the  earth.  Some  six  or  seven  thousand  years, 
at  most,  bring  us  to  the  beginnings  of  human  history ;  but 
the  facts  of  man's  present  condition,  and  the  evidence  of 
ancient  monuments  and  archaeological  remains,  render  it 
necessary  for  us  to  assume  a  period  of  several  hundred 

*  Darwin's  Descent  of  Man. 


262  Evolution  of  Morals. 

thousand  years  since  man  was  derived  from  that  old-world 
ape,  "  probably  arboreal  in  its  habits,"  which  Mr.  DarAvin 
regards  as  man's  immediate  ancestor.  Into  this  dim  past, 
guided  by  such  facts  as  we  may  obtain  from  archaeological, 
philological  and  aboriginal  studies,  we  must  prolong  our 
mental  vision,  and  form  such  conception  as  we  may  of  the 
characters  of  our  early  ancestors,  and  the  probable  facts 
involved  in  the  evolution  of  man's  moral  nature. 
^  Somehow,  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  primitive  man 
Y  had  evolved  greater  intellectual  capacity  and  acuteness  than 
\^the  brute-creatures  by  whom  he  was  surrounded.  His 
/  relative  feebleness,  and  the  consequent  adversities  against 
which  he  had  to  struggle,  doubtless  helped  to  secure  this 
result.  It  is  this  intellectual  characteristic  —  closely 
related  on  its  biological  side  to  the  development  and  posses- 
sion of  a  fore-limb  and  hand  capable  of  manual  dexterity, 
and  the  physical  organs  and  intellectual  possibility  of 
speech  —  which,  in  the  judgment  of  Mr.  Darwin,  differen- 
tiates man  from  the  lower  animals.  This  superior  intellect- 
ual capacity  has  its  bearing  on  the  evolution  of  conduct,  as 
we  have  already  seen ;  but  a  fact  even  more  pertinent  to  our 
inquiry,  as  Mr.  Fiske  has  shown,*  is  the  lengthening  of  the 
period  of  infancy,  which  necessitated  more  prolonged  care 
for  the  offspring  of  man's  progenitor  than  that  which  is 
bestowed  by  any  other  animal.  It  was  registered  in  the 
great  Book  of  Life,  of  which  man's  history  constitutes  the 
latest  chapter,  that  only  by  becoming  as  a  little  child  could 
he  enter  into  the  high  heaven  of  moral  aspiration  and  en- 
deavor. 

The  earliest  instincts  of  primitive  man  were  doubtless 
purely  egoistic,  like  those  of  the  brutes ;  they  were  not  im- 
moral, properly  speaking,  but  un-moral;  the  moral  sense 
was  as  yet  undeveloped.  If  proof  of  this  assertion  is  needed, 
it  may  be  found  in  the  study  of  language  —  in  the  investi- 
gation of  the  origins  of  those  words  which  we  now  use  to 
define  and  express  ethical  conceptions.  "If  we  examine 
the  words,  those  oldest  prehistoric  testimonies,"  says  Geiger, 
an  eminent  philological  authority,  "  we  shall  find  that  all 
[expressions  of]  moral  notions  contain  something  morally 
indifferent."  The  original  meaning  of  "right,"  for  exam- 
ple, is  straight;  of  "wrong,"  wrung  or  crooked.  "Con- 
science "  has  primarily  an  intellectual,  "  ought "  and  "  duty  " 
♦Fiske's  Cosmic  Philosopliy. 


Evolution  of  Morals.  2^S 

a  commercial,  not  a  moral  signification.  These  words  come 
to  represent  ethical  ideas  only  by  a  process  of  metaphorical 
transformation.  "  But  why,"  continues  the  authority  just 
quoted,  "have  not  the  morally  good  and  bad  their  own 
names  in  language  ?  Why  do  we  know  them  from  some- 
thing else  that  previously  had  its  appellation  ?  Evidently 
because  language  dates  from  a  period  when  a  moral  judg- 
ment, a  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  had  not  yet  dawned  in 
the  human  mind."  * 

With  some  of  the  higher  animals,  primitive  man  inherited, 
however,  in  common  with  the  gregarious  instinct,  an  in- 
stinctive sympathetic  quality  in  which  Mr.  Darwin  distin- 
guishes the  germs  of  morality. f  These  earliest  social 
tendencies,  as  well  as  those  subsequently  developed,  are 
directly  related  to  that  steady  increase  of  population,  which 
intensified  the  struggle  for  existence,  and  thereby  com- 
pelled greater  activity  of  body  and  intellect  in  the  effort  to 
preserve  life.  As  this  process  progressed,  man's  conduct 
became  more  highly  differentiated  and  evolved  than  that  of 
any  other  animal.  Memory  became  more  vivid  and  com- 
prehensive. He  looked  backward  and  compared  the  effects 
of  his  past  actions,  as  determined  by  diverse  motives,  and 
was  influenced  by  this  recollection  when  similar  emergencies 
arose  thereafter,  t  As  all  his  motives  were  egoistic,  looking 
toward  self-preservation  and  self -gratification,  his  conduct 
cannot,  however,  yet  be  regarded  as  moral.  If  the  instinct 
for  self-preservation  could  be  satisfied  by  protecting  and 
ministering  to  companion  and  offspring,  well  and  good ;  if, 
as  he  judged,  by  their  destruction,  no  moral  scruples  stood 
in  the  way  of  his  deadly  purpose. 

The  long  period  of  infancy  nevertheless  held  the  family 
together,  and  necessitated  a  continuance  of  those  acts  of 
mutual  forbearance  and  affection  which  cease  among  animals 
when  the  young  are  able  to  make  shift  for  themselves.  The 
mother  ministered  to  the  child,  while  the  father  gathered 
food  and  protected  the  family  from  wild  beasts  and  savage 
men.  Other  children  came,  perhaps,  before  the  care  of  the 
mother  over  the  first-born  could  be  relaxed.  So,  in  the  rude 
cave-dwelling,  grew  up  the  germ  of  the  home  —  the  earliest 


♦Geiger's  Address  delivered  to  the  Merchants  of  Frankfort-on-the-Main.  In 
the  Australian,  and  some  other  languages  of  extant  savage  races,  there  are  no 
words  to  express  justice,  or  moral  obligation,  sin  or  guilt. 

t  Darwin's  Descent  of  Man. 

JIbid.,I.,pp.  99, 100. 


264  Evolution  of  Morals. 

example  of  the  permanent  family  relation.*  The  preserva- 
tion of  the  family  became  recognized  as  essential  to  the 
life  and  happiness  of  the  individual.  The  family  became  a 
larger  self,  and  toward  the  preservation  of  this  self  instead 
of  the  individual  self,  the  efforts  of  each  member  of  the 
family  were  directed.!  This  change  involved  still  greater 
■complexity  in  the  adjustment  of  acts  to  ends  —  more  active 
intelligence,  greater  fulness  and  length  of  life :  —  in  a  word, 
a  higher  evolution  of  conduct.  It  was  probably  during  this 
earliest  stage  of  social  evolution  that  language  was  evolved, 
giving  a  great  impulse  both  to  intellectual  development,  and 
to  that  tendency  to  social  combination  out  of  which  has 
grown  the  moral  sense.  "  Any  being,"  says  Darwin,  <'  if  it 
vary,  however  slightly,  in  a  manner  j)Tofitahle  to  itself,  will 
have  a  better  chance  of  surviving,  and  thus  be  naturally 
selected."  Such  a  variation,  evidently,  was  this  change  in 
conduct,  as  a  higher  order  of  intelligence  and  greater  facil- 
ities for  social'  communication  were  evolved.  The  vital 
activities,  no  longer  exhausted  in  the  struggle  to  live  and 
the  effort  to  perpetuate  the  race,  turned  naturally  into 
other  channels.  As  a  larger  average  number  of  individuals 
reached  maturity,  reproductive  activities  were  diminished 
and  the  struggle  for  existence  was  ameliorated.  $  The  law 
of  competitive  contest  which,  superficially  regarded,  seemed 
to  threaten  either  universal  selfishness  or  universal  destruc- 
tion, was  found  to  contain  the  proper  antidote  for  these 
evils  in  the  natural  result  of  its  own  operation.  The  co- 
operative family,  it  is  evident,  would  be  better  able  to  cope 
with  unfavorable  conditions  in  the  struggle  for  existence 
than  the  lone  anthropoid  progenitor  of  man  had  ever  been.  § 
The  growth  of  the  family-self  into  the  tribal-self,  of  the 
tribe  into  the  city  and  State,  doubtless  proceeded  along  the 
lines  which  we  have  already  indicated  in  describing  the 
evolution  of  the  family ;  resulting  in  a  gradual  enlargement 
of  the  area  of  altruistic  service,  a  constant  diminution  of 
warfare  and  struggle,  a  higher  order  of  individual  and  social 
life.     Our  study  of  the  evolution  of  society  has  proved  to 

*  It  is  not  assumed  that  the  monogamic  family  constituted  the  earliest  form 
of  the  domestic  relation.  Doubtless  polygamous  and  polyandrous  relations 
succeeded  the  primitive  herdal  (gregarious)  habits  of  man's  progenitors,  pre- 
ceding the  monogamic  family  in  the  order  of  evolution.  The  theory  of  moral 
evolution  herewith  set  forth  requires  only  a  permanent  family  relationship, 
however  constituted. 

t  Wake's  Evolution  of  Morality. 

X  Spencer's  Essay  on  the  Law  of  Population. 

§Lone,  though  gregarious,  because  his  motives  were  fundamentally  egoistic. 


Evolution  of  Morals.  265 

us  that  the  great  nations  of  antiquity,  and  the  civilizations 
of  our  own  time  were  developed  from  the  primitive  family 
as  the  social  unit.  The  family  altar  has  ever  been  the 
school  for  the  moral  culture  of  the  race.  The  full  signifi- 
cance of  these  facts  of  social  evolution,  in  their  relation  to 
our  topic,  is  only  made  manifest  when  we  perceive  that 
throughout  the  entire  process,  from  its  beginning  in  the 
rude  cave-dwellings  of  primitive  man,  the  obligation  to  serve 
others  has  been  substituted  ever  more  and  more  widely  for 
the  obligation  to  serve  one's  self,  as  the  conscious  motive 
in  the  government  of  conduct.  Man  has  progressively  iden- 
tified his  individual  welfare  with  that  of  ever-increasing 
numbers  of  his  fellow-men.  The  instinct  of  obligation  is, 
indeed,  intuitive  from  the  beginning;  an  inheritance  not 
only  from  man's  brute-progenitors,  but  from  faraway  origins 
in  the  operations  of  inorganic  forces.  It  is  akin  to  those 
instinctive  gropings  of  vegetable  forms,  deep-buried  in  the 
earth,  for  light  and  nourishment.  It  impelled  volition  in 
the  lowest  conscious  adaptations  of  acts  to  ends.  In  its 
primitive  form,  however,  it  was  an  egoistic,  not  a  moral  im- 
pulse. The  "  ought "  of  primitive  man  was  not  a  moral  obli- 
gation ;  it  was  a  recognition  of  something  owed  to  himself. 
The  sense  of  duty,  as  we  understand  it,  was  not  born  until 
the  secondary  and  indirect  motive  of  race-maintenance  and 
altruistic  service  was  consciously  and  voluntarily  substi- 
tuted for  the  primary,  egoistic  motive  of  self-preservation 
and  self -gratification.  By  this  substitution, —  the  gradual 
and  entirely  natural  result  of  growing  intelligence  and 
pleasurable  experience  in  altruistic  service, —  conscious  al- 
truistic feeling  and  desire  have  grown  out  of  egoism,  Duty 
has  supplanted  an  animal  instinct.  Yet  here  has  been  no 
creation,  but  merely  a  process  of  transformation,  of  evolu- 
tion. The  "raw-material"  of  morality  is  found  in  the 
simplest  orderly  manifestations  of  volitional  activities  in 
organic  nature ; — yes,  back  even  in  those  steadfast  laws 
and  tendencies  which  are  manifest  in  the  action  of  the  inor- 
ganic universe.  Stability,  order,  law,  evolutionary  tendency 
— these  are  the  essential  elements  in  morality,  as  in  the 
differentiation  and  integration  of  nebulous  matter,  and  the 
movements  of  the  planets  around  their  central  suns.  In  the 
last  analysis  it  is  not  two  things  that  fill  the  mind  with  awe, 
as  in  the  familiar  phrase  of  Kant,  but  one  thing,  whether  it 


266  Evolution  of  Morals. 

be  manifested  in  the  order  of  the  galaxies,  or  in  the  orderly 
impulse  to  right  action  which  we  term  Conscience  or  Duty. 

Perhaps  the  modus  ojyerandi  of  moral  evolution  may  be 
better  understood  by  studying  the  psychological  principles 
underlying  the  entire  process  of  organic  development  from 
yet  another  point  of  view.  The  groAvth  of  the  manifold 
faculties  of  sentient  organisms  can  only  be  understood  on 
the  fundamental  assumption  that  life  is  inherently  good, 
and  that  each  successive  stage  in  the  evolution  of  life  is 
productive,  on  the  whole,  of  an  increase  in  the  sum  total  of 
subjective  satisfactions.*  In  order  to  survive  in  the  strug- 
gle for  existence,  each  organism  and  race  must  adapt  itself 
to  its  environment.  Upon  its  greater  or  less  degree  of 
adaptability  depends  the  amount  of  conscious  satisfaction 
which  it  derives  from  the  use  of  its  faculties  —  or,  in  other 
words,  from  its  conscious  life.f  The  experience  of  this 
satisfaction  from  right  adjustment,  and  of  the  pains  conse- 
quent upon  mal-adjustment,  lias  been  the  immediate  motive- 
power  in  effecting  social  and  moral  evolution.  The  higher 
organisms  are  doubtless  susceptible  of  greater  pain  and 
suffering  than  the  lower ;  but  this  must  be  more  than 
counterbalanced,  on  the  whole,  by  an  increase  of  satisfac- 
tions, or  the  life  of  the  individual  and  the  race  would  come 
to  an  eiid.  The  suffering  to  which  conscious  beings  are 
subjected  is  not,  therefore,  an  essential  quality  of  life ;  it 
is  the  result  of  some  interference  with  its  spontaneous  and 
perfect  manifestation.  Life  itself,  in  its  essential  quality, 
is  good.  All  organisms,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  seek 
instinctively  or  voluntarily  for  more  abundant  life,  and  find 
their  health  and  satisfaction  in  its  achievement.  Conscious 
volition,  in  this  particular,  simply  follows  the  path  made 
for  it  by  the  inherited  sum  total  of  past  involuntary  and 
unconscious  experiences.  It  testifies  to  the  immanence  in 
the  organism  of  a  universal  biological  law. 

It  naturally  follows  that  those  actions  which  tend  to 
adapt  the  organism  to  its  environment,  though  they  may  at 
first  be  attended  with  pain,  and  demand  effort  or  self-denial, 
and  are  perhaps  initiated  only  by  reason  of  the  imperative 

*  Spencer's  Principles  of  Psychologj'. 

t "  Life"  is  defined  by  Mr.  Spencer  as  "  the  continuous  adjustment  of  internal 
relations  to  external  relations"  (Principles  of  Psycholofcy).  This  expression  is 
synonymous  with  the  one  we  have  used — "the  adaptation  of  the  organism  to 
the  environment."  Life  is  adjustment,  or  adaptation,  involving  a  movement 
or  process,  tending  toward  a  condition  of  harmony  or  equilibrium  between  the 
organism  and  tlie  totality  of  its  environing  conditions. 


Evolution  of  Morals.  267 

necessity  for  self-sustenance  or  race-maintenance,  yield 
greater  and  greater  satisfactions  as  they  become  habitual 
and  instinctive.  It  is  entirely  natural  according  to  this 
principle,  that  altruistic  actions,  originally  initiated  from 
egoistic  motives,  should  be  continued,  when  they  become 
habitual,  from  higher  motives.  The  original  selfisn  impulse 
of  desire  or  fear  may  be  wholly  eliminated,  and  the  action 
may  be  pursued  without  thought  of  ulterior  recompense. 
The  child  at  lirst  shares  its  playthings  with  its  little  com- 
panions, perhaps,  under  the  stress  of  paternal  compulsion ; 
but  it  soon  comes  to  receive  pleasure  from  the  perception 
and  sympathetic  appreciation  of  their  pleasure :  the  gener- 
ous act  brings  its  own  reward.  Thus  habit,  in  adapting  man  to 
his  social  environment,  revolutionizes  his  ethical  point  of 
view. 

Not  only  does  it  induce  this  change  of  conscious  motive ; 
it  also  differentiates  the  sense  of  moral  obligation  from 
those  peremptory  selfish  instincts  in  which  it  has  its  root, 
thus  creating  the  imperative  impulse  of  Duty.  The  "  ought " 
of  the  Evolution  philosophy  having  been  evolved  out  of  the 
struggle  for  a  larger  life,  implies  the  obligation  to  strive 
for  fulness  of  life  in  one's  self  and  in  the  world  at  large.* 
For  the  service  of  Self,  it  substitutes  the  service  of  Human- 
ity. It  is  more  than  an  impulse  to  seek  one's  own  imme- 
diate or  proximate  advantage  and  happiness.  Interpreted 
even  in  egoistic  terms,  it  implies  an  obligation  to  seek  for 
the  perfection  of  self,t  including  the  perfection  of  one's 
moral  and  spiritual  nature ;  and  to  seek  it,  if  need  be,  there- 
fore, at  the  sacrifice  of  one's  immediate  personal  comfort 
and  happiness.  Life  is  measured,  ethically,  not  by  length 
of  years,  not  even  by  the  present  or  proximate  sum  total  of 
the  individual  activities ;  but  rather  by  the  sum  total  of  the 
individual's  influence  in  promoting  fulness  of  life  in  all  sen- 
tient creatures  —  now  living  and  yet  to  he.  The  conception 
of  moral  obligation  presented  by  the  new  ethics  thus  accounts 
for  the  action  of  the  world's  sages,  saviours  and  moral 
heroes  —  for  that  of  men  like  Socrates,  Jesus  and  the  Buddha 
—  as  well  as  for  that  of  the  conventional  well-disposed  citi- 
zen of  the  well-ordered  State ;  for  there  are  times  when  the 
clear  vision  of  noble  souls  perceives  that  only  by  contempt 
for  the  conventional,  by  the  overthrow  of  institutions  which 
have  become  barriers  in  the  path  of  human  progress,  can 

♦Flske's  Cosmic  Philosophy.       t  Claude's  The  Foundation  of  Ethics. 


268  Evolution  of  Morals. 

the  perfection  of  the  race  be  achieved.  When  such  a  con- 
viction is  clearly  held  by  a  strong  and  well-balanced  mind, 
it  can  do  no  otherwise  than  seek  the  perfection  of  its  own 
manhood  through  intelligent  and  devoted  service  to  the 
welfare  of  mankind.  Not  to  follow  the  imperative  mandate 
of  duty,  even  if  it  lead  to  contumely  and  death,  would  para- 
lyze the  life  with  a  sense  of  ignoble  shame. 

Such  is  the  history,  in  brief,  of  the  evolution  of  morals  — 
such  the  facts  which  underlie  the  foundations  of  moral  sci- 
ence. Throughout  the  ages  since  man  emerged  from  the  brute- 
egoism  of  his  original  estate,  diverse  human  motives  and 
activities  have  been  pitted  against  one  another  in  a  struggle 
for  existence  similar  to  that  which  has  gone  on  in  the  lower 
range  of  biological  development.  The  same  law  has  held 
good  in  moral  evolution  which  justified  the  method  of  nature 
on  the  lower  plane  —  the  fittest  in  action  has  survived. 
Those  motives,  impulses,  desires,  which  best  fit  man  for  the 
rational  use  of  all  his  faculties,  and  which  best  serve  the 
race  in  its  struggle  toward  a  condition  of  social  equilibrium, 
have  gradually  emerged,  and  become  not  indeed  actually 
triumphant  over  all  lower  impulses,  but  at  least  of  gener- 
ally recognized  authority  among  intelligent  people.  The 
law  of  conflict,  which  seemed  fraught  only  with  pain,  de- 
struction, and  the  perpetuity  of  egoistic  tendencies  in  the 
government  of  human  conduct,  blossoms  at  last  with  the 
noblest  flowers  of  unselfish  character. 

It  now  remains  for  us  to  consider  the  nature  of  the  ethical 
system  which  logically  results  from  the  facts  of  moral  evo- 
lution, and  some  of  the  objections  which  have  been  raised 
against  it.  As  the  principle  of  utility,  in  a  high  sense,  has 
determined  the  selection  or  rejection  of  motives  and  activi- 
ties throughout  the  entire  process  of  moral  evolution,  it 
naturally  follows  that  the  Science  of  Morals  should  be 
classed  as  a  utilitarian  system.  That  it  differs  radically, 
however,  from  the  crude  utilitarianism  of  the  older  schools 
is  evident  from  our  previous  discussion,  and  will  be  still 
farther  evident  upon  consideration. 

Moral  Science  treats  of  the  conduct  of  man  in  his  relations 
to  other  men  and  to  society  in  general.  The  order  of  moral 
evolution,  and  the  laws  governing  it,  are  registered  in  the 
history  and  experience  of  the  race.  Its  sanctions  have  been 
universally  operative,  alike  upon  the  ethically  wise  and  the 
ethically  ignorant,  thus  educating  all  to  a  knowledge  of  the 


r 


if 


Evolution  of  Morals.  269 

imperative  nature  of  its  demands.  Its  result  is  organized 
as  conscience  in  the  mind  of  the  individual.  Conscience, 
therefore,  is  the  individual's  inheritance  of  the  moral  expe- 
riences and  tendencies  of  all  past  generations ;  it  is  not 
merely  the  creation  of  the  existing  social  status.  Prevail- 
ing customs,  ideas,  and  institutions  may  influence  the  form 
of  its  immediate  manifestations, —  they  do  not  account  for 
its  fundamental  character  as  an  imperative  obligation  urging 
man  to  an  ideal  end.  Conscience  appears  in  the  individual 
as  an  intuition ;  but  like  all  other  intuitions  it  is  the  out- 
growth of  inherited  experiences.  It  is  of  variant  force  and 
reliability  in  different  individuals,  dependent  upon  circum- 
stances of  organization  and  culture.  In  so  far  as  it  is 
actively  existent,  it  urges  man  always  to  do  the  right,  leav- 
ing his  intellect,  however,  to  determine  what  the  concrete 
right  is  in  any  special  emergency.  It  is  not  true,  therefore, 
that  conscience  is  an  infallible  guide,  in  the  unqualified 
sense  assumed  by  the  transcendental  moralist.  The  nature 
of  actions  as  good  or  bad  can  only  be  determined  by  an  ob- 
servation and  estimation  of  their  effects.  Morality  therefore 
involves  an  action  of  the  intellect  as  well  as  of  the  feelings ; 
it  holds  man  responsible  for  the  intelligent  investigation  of 
the  results  of  actions,  as  well  as  for  the  vague  intention  to 
do  right. 

Moral  Science  asserts  that  the  qualities  of  actions  are  not 
accidental  or  arbitrarily  determined  by  the  will  of  Deity. 
They  are  "necessary  consequences  of  the  constitution  of 
things."  *  By  the  study,  therefore,  of  the  laws  of  life,  and 
of  human  conduct  as  related  thereto,  we  may  ascertain  what 
kinds  of  action  necessarily  extend  the  boundaries  and  satis- 
factions of  life,  in  the  individual  and  in  the  community, 
and  what  kinds  produce  a  contrary  effect.  These  deductions, 
when  ascertained,  are  recognized  as  laws  of  conduct,  and 
the  educated  conscience  is  impelled  to  conform  to  these 
laws  irrespective  of  any  direct  estimation  of  resultant 
happiness  or  misery.  Thus  the  crude  utilitarianism  of  the 
older  schools  is  superseded  by  the  rational  utilitarianism 
of  the  evolution  philosophy.  Obedience  to  the  moral  law 
becomes  the  object  and  incentive  of  the  highest  intelligence, 
in  place  of  the  empirical  impulse  of  immediate  utility  or 
egoistic  pleasure. 

Moral   Science  as  thus  described   embodies  the  truths 

*  Spencer's  Data  of  Ethics. 


270  Evolution  of  Morals. 

while  it  discards  the  errors  of  conflicting  ethical  systems. 
It  recognizes  alike  the  intuitional  and  the  experiential 
nature  of  conscience;  it  is  an  intuition  in  the  individual 
resulting  from  experience  in  the  race.  Conceiving  of  Deity 
as  the  Power  immanent  in  all  the  processes  of  evolution, — 
as  immediately  manifested  in  the  nature  of  things, —  and  of 
ethical  endeavor  as  the  action  of  human  volition  in  the  effort 
to  achieve  harmony  with  this  evolutionary  tendency  in 
nature  and  society,  it  recognizes  also  an  underlying  truth  in 
the  conception  that  moral  action  is  obedience  to  the  divine 
will.  The  obedience,  however,  is  not  to  a  testamentary 
will  of  God,  made  known  in  a  verbal  revelation,  but  to  his 
actual  will,  revealed  in  the  instant  operation  of  natural 
and  universal  laws.  "  Fulness  of  life  "  is  only  another  term 
for  that  "perfection  or  excellence  of  nature"  which  yet 
another  school  of  thinkers  regards  as  the  ultimate  object  of 
moral  action.  Eising  above  empirical  utilitarianism,  the 
conclusions  of  Moral  Science  harmonize  with  the  conception 
that  Virtue,  not  egoistic  pleasure,  should  be  the  object  of 
ethical  endeavor ;  yet  it  recognizes  also  that  happiness  is 
the  natural  concomitant  of  that  perfection  of  life  which  all 
virtuous  activities  have  in  view,  and  is  therefore  in  one 
sense  the  end,  though  it  cannot  be  the  immediate  object  of 
pursuit,  in  the  perfect  life.* 

Deducing  its  system  from  the  actual  facts  involved  in 
the  evolution  of  conduct.  Moral  Science  recognizes  both  an 
absolute  ethic,  adapted  to  the  perfect  man  in  an  ideal  state 
of  society,  and  a  relative  ethic,  applicable  to  all  men  in 
each  successive  stage  of  social  evolution.  In  many  of  the 
affairs  of  life  there  is  fortunately  for  us  no  conflict  between 
these  two  standards  of  judgment.  In  the  relations  of  the 
well-ordered  family,  for  example,  all  natural  individual 
activities  should  be  promotive  of  reciprocal  satisfactions 
which  tend  to  the  completion  of  each  individual  life.  Mutual 
service  should  bring  mutual  reward  and  happiness.  The 
subject  of  ethics,  however,  in  its  total  scope,  is  a  very  com- 
plex one.  It  is  easy  to  turn  a  syllogism ;  it  is  not  so  easy, 
always,  to  decide  what  is  right  in  the  multifarious  situations 
of  life.  Many  of  the  problems  of  practical  affairs  are  in- 
capable of  solution  by  the  application  of  the  simple  tests 
required  by  an  ideal  standard  of  perfect  conduct.  A  recent 
writer  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  has  treated  of  "  The  Ethics 
♦Spencer's  Data  of  Ethics. 


Evolution  of  Morals.  271 

of  Cannibalism  " ;  and  it  may  be  admitted  that  he  has  fairly 
demonstrated  that  this  social  custom  is  not  so  wholly 
divorced  from  ethical  considerations  as  might  at  first  appear. 
The  system  of  slavery,  which,  as  related  to  our  modern 
civilization,  was  rightly  denounced  by  John  Wesley  as  "  the 
sum  of  all  villanies,"  was,  in  its  inception,  a  beneficent  sub- 
stitute for  slaughter  and  cannibalism,  and  its  adoption  indi- 
cated an  ethical  advance  on  the  part  of  its  originators.  In 
many  of  the  situations  of  life  as  they  arise  in  the  course  of 
social  evolution,  under  the  pressing  exigencies  of  contem- 
porary custom,  business  competition,  governmental  regula- 
tion and  popular  prejudice,  it  must  be  recognized  that  the 
best  that  the  conscientious  individual  can  do  is  to  choose 
that  course  of  conduct  which,  under  all  the  circumstances, 
seems  likely  to  be  productive  of  the  fewest  evil  results, 
instead  of  that  which  is  absolutely  right,  even  if  he  is  capa- 
ble of  comprehending  the  absolute  right.  A  man  who,  in 
the  midst  of  a  savage  or  barbarous  community,  in  defiance 
of  current  social  or  religious  customs,  should  attempt  to 
live  the  ideal  life  of  a  perfect  civilization,  would  doubtless 
quickly  be  eliminated  from  such  a  society  by  violent  and 
tragical  means,  and  thus  effectively  be  estopped  from  influ- 
encing those  around  him  to  better  ways  of  living.  Miich  of 
our  enforced  civilization  of  savage  races  has  been  fatal  in 
its  effects  upon  the  health  and  happiness  of  the  vast  major- 
ity, while  it  has  failed  to  elevate  the  average  morals  of  the 
survivors.  This  is  likely  to  be  the  result  whenever  conven- 
tional education  is  forced  upon  a  people  in  advance  of  their 
functional  development.  The  Hawaian  Islanders  offer  a 
fruitful  and  impressive  example  of  the  truth  of  this  asser- 
tion, if  such  be  needed.  Even  in  our  modern  civilized  com- 
munities he  who  attempts  to  live  a  life  of  ideal  moral 
perfection  will  often  "  find  himself  in  sufficiently  dramatic 
situations."  *  He  must  be  a  very  strong  and  well-balanced 
man  who  can  materially  aid  society  by  violently  and  radi- 
cally opposing  its  conventional  methods  and  tendencies. 
The  gradual  evolutionary  processes  of  ethical  culture  are 
usually  more  effective  in  bringing  about  social  reforms,  than 
"running  a-muck"  against  social  evils  with  violent  denun- 
ciation and  abuse. 

The  ultimate  practical  test  of  Moral  Science  in  doubtful 
emergencies,   when   formulated,   is  nevertheless  precisely 

•The  phrase  is  "  Christopher  North's." 


272  Evolution  of  Morals. 

what  it  would  be  in  an  ideally  perfect  society :  That  course 
of  conduct  must  be  adopted  which  will  promote  the  greatest 
possihle  development  of  life-giving  energies,  both  in  the  indi- 
viduals immediately  affected,  and  in  society  at  large,  including 
the  life  of  posterity.  Such  action,  wisely  followed  after  a 
due  consideration  of  all.attendnnt  circumstances,  will  always 
satisfy  the  demands  of  an  enlightened  conscience.  It  must 
be  remembered,  however,  that  the  absolute  standard  of  right 
should  always  be  held  in  view ;  and  that  no  deviation  from 
it  is  ever  justifiable  in  one  who  is  capable  of  apprehending 
such  a  standard,  unless  it  clearly  appears  that  any  other 
course  of  action  would  diminish  the  sum  total  of  life-giving 
activities  in  the  world  at  large. 

Moral  Science,  as  thus  described,  holds  in  just  perspec- 
tive the  claims  of  both  altruism  and  egoism  in  their  relation 
to  conduct.  The  primary  instinct  of  self-preservation 
which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  moral  evolution,  is  ethically 
justified  when  pruned  of  undue  selfishness,  and  held  in 
proper  adjustment  and  equilibrium  with  the  general  well- 
being.  Man's  first  duty  to  society  is  to  render  himself  an 
independent  and  self-supporting  member  thereof,  and  to 
qualify  himself  by  the  cultivation  of  his  faculties  for  the 
intelligent  and  useful  service  of  mankind.  The  exercise  of 
all  his  natural  functions  and  faculties,  in  due  proportion,  is 
to  be  regarded  as  a  moral  obligation,  since  by  repeated 
neglect  or  disuse  the  organism  is  weakened,  and  thereby 
rendered  less  competent  to  add  to  the  sum  total  of  life-giving 
energies,  both  personal  and  social.  For  a  like  reason,  all 
excesses  are  to  be  condemned  and  avoided  —  including  ex- 
cesses of  self-renunciation  in  altruistic  service.  Care  of 
the  body,  the  preservation  of  physical  health,  thus  becomes 
a  moral  obligation.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  in  a  more 
perfect  state  of  society  the  confession  of  disease  will  become 
as  shameful  as  the  admission  of  moral  delinquency.  Even 
unavoidable  invalidism,  other  than  that  which  is  the  natural 
accompaniment  of  age,  will  be  placed  upon  a  par  with  in- 
herited and  ineradicable  tendencies  to  moral  lapse,  like 
kleptomania  and  dipsomania. 

Right  thought,  conscientious  investigation  of  intellectual 
problems,  is  also  enjoined  by  Moral  Science.  The  moral 
man  will  cease  to  be  an  intellectual  parasite,  and  form  his 
own  intelligent  judgments  on  all  the  problems  of  thought. 
Thus  only  can  the  highest  life  be  attained.     The  scope  of 


Evolution  of  Morals.  273 

ethics  is  wonderfully  broadened  by  the  application  of  the 
tests  required  by  evolutionary  morals.  Right  action  is  no 
mere  concern  of  conventional  morality, —  an  obedience  to 
the  "  Thou  shalt  nots  "  of  the  formal  code.  It  becomes  a 
matter  of  positive,  all-comprehensive  and  enduring  obliga- 
tion, inspiring  the  mind  to  purity,  activity  and  integrity  of 
thought  as  well  as  of  deed — to  nobility  of  motive,  intelli- 
gent and  conscientious  regard  for  the  possible  results  of 
action,  and  a  sublime  self-consecration  to  the  interests, 
welfare  and  happiness  of  all  sentient  creatures.  The  fulness 
of  life  which  is  the  end  of  ethical  endeavor  being  the  result 
of  conduct  in  its  ultimate  stage  of  evolution,  there  will  be 
no  conflict  between  the  wisest  egoistic  and  the  wisest  altru- 
istic endeavor  in  the  perfect  life  of  society,  as  governed  by 
an  ideal  moral  standard.  In  wisely  seeking  the  perfection 
of  self,  we  are  seeking  the  welfare  and  happiness  of  others, 
and  vice  versa.*  The  new  ethics  thus  cultivates  and  justi- 
fies a  manly  self-respect  instead  of  the  abject  self-abnegation 
demanded  by  the  old  theological  dogma  of  total  depravity. 
"  Self-love,"  it  affirms  with  Shakspeare,  "  is  not  so  vile  a 
sin  as  self-neglecting."  This  attitude  is  not  so  widely  sepa- 
rated as  may  at  first  appear  from  the  ethics  of  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  for  the  obligations  implied  by  the  beatitudes 
and  the  Golden  Rule  also  find  their  sanctions  and  equipoise 
in  self-interest. 

The  intuitive  moralist  finds  an  insuperable  objection  to 
the  evolutionary  theory  of  morals,  in  the  fact  that  its  sense 
of  duty  is  derived.  Duty,  he  says,  is  an  original  endow- 
ment of  the  human  mind  —  a  primitive  and  imperative  in- 
tuition. Kant,  however,  the  noblest  thinker  of  the  tran- 
scendental school,  admits  that  the  moral  imperative  is  merely 
formal ;  it  simply  says  we  ought,  without  declaring  what  we 
ought  to  do.  It  tells  us  that  duty  exists,  but  it  does  not 
tell  us  what  duty  is  in  any  given  case.  "The  only  objects 
of  practical  reason,"  says  Kant,  "are  therefore  those  of 
good  or  evil ;  but  it  depends  upon  experience  to  find  what 
is  good  or  evil."t  An  obligation  empty  of  content  is  evi- 
dently no  infallible  guide  to  right  action ;  and  it  is  difficult 
to  see  what  advantage  the  intuitive  moralist  has  over  the 
evolutionist  as  to  the  strength  of  his  ethical  sanctions,  since 
both  theories  admit  that  the  sense  of  obligation  is  intuitive 
in  the  individual,  and  both  derive  the  moral  content  from 
♦Maude's  The  Foundation  of  Ethics,   t  Kant's  Critique  of  Practical  Reason. 


274  HJvolutiou  of  Morals. 

the  lessons  of  experience.  The  recognition  of  the  derivative 
character  of  duty,  however,  as  interpreted  by  legitimate 
inferences  from  the  study  of  the  evolution  of  morals,  would 
appear  to  strengthen  rather  than  to  weaken  its  imperative 
nature,  since  it  thus  appears  that  the  sense  of  obligation  is 
derived  from  the  essential  nature  of  things  —  the  very  con- 
stitution of  the  universe.  Duty  is  derived  only  as  man  and 
all  his  faculties  are  derived.  It  appears  in  the  human  mind 
as  the  culmination  of  the  entire  process  of  evolution.  All 
living  things,  all  worlds,  the  Infinite  Power  which  is  revealed 
in  all  phenomenal  manifestations,  have  striven  to  build  up 
this  imperative  impulse  in  the  mind  of  man.  It  is  the  latest 
and  finest  product  of  evolutionary  labor,  and  necessarily, 
therefore,  a  supreme  obligation  to  him  in  whose  mind  it  has 
developed,  until  its  behests  are  completely  organized  in  his 
being.  Then  obligation  ceases,  only  to  give  place  to  pleas- 
urable instinct ;  and  right  action  becomes  as  natural  as  the 
blossoming  of  flowers  or  the  silent,  resistless  operation  of 
the  law  of  gravity.  To  be  consistent,  the  intuitionist  is 
compelled  to  deny  that  spontaneous  right-action,  pleasurably 
anticipated,  and  unaccompanied  by  a  sense  of  compulsion, 
possesses  any  moral  value  whatever.  The  advocates  of  this 
theory  are  so  earnest  in  affirming  that  a  sense  of  duty  and 
of  the  difficulty  of  doing  right  are  essential  to  morality, 
that  one  might  naturally  infer  that  they  must  be  personally 
conscious  of  heinous  moral  guilt,  and  suffering  therefor  the 
pangs  of  remorse.  ^  They  would  doubtless  resent  the  per- 
sonal interference,  however,  as  energetically  as  does  the 
sleek  devotee  of  the  revival  meeting,  Avho  denounces  him-  ■ 
self,  in  a  Pickwickian  sense,  as  the  vilest  of  sinners.^  Moral 
spasms  and  paroxysms  of  self-condemnation  illustrate  not 
only  an  immature  stage  of  moral  development  in  the  subject, 
but  also  an  immature  phase  of  thought  concerning  the 
nature  and  sanctions  of  morality.  Kant's  definition  of 
Duty  as  "  necessitation  to  an  end  which  is  unwillingly 
adopted,"  certainly  justifies  us  in  cherishing  Spencer's  hope 
that  pleasurable  spontaneity  in  right  action  will  ultimately 
supersede  the  sense  of  obligation.*  Happy  and  willing 
obedience  to  the  moral  laAv  would  certainly  seem  to  indicate 
a  higher  condition  of  ethical  health  than  the  compulsory 
and  unwilling  performance  of  moral  obligations ;  and  the 
self-respect  implied  in  such  obedience  is  ethically  a  nobler 
*  Spencer's  Ethics  of  Kant.    See  also,  Data  of  Ethics. 


Evolution  of  Morals.  21  o 

and  more  helpful  state  of  mind  than  remorseful  self-depre- 
ciation. "Do  not  waste  time  in  compunctions,"  said  the 
Concord  seer,  in  the  spirit  of  the  New  Ethics.  Longfellow's 
"Let  the  dead  past  bury  its  dead,"  plirases  the  same  high 
thought :  this  is  the  nobler  inspiration  of  evolutionary 
morals. 

Praise*  and  blame  are  indeed  justly  apportioned  to  indi- 
viduals according  to  the  degree  of  difficulty  under  which 
they  pursue  right  coiirses  of  action;  but  the  moral  law  is 
ultimately  concerned  with  something  infinitely  higher  than 
the  task  of  justly  awarding  praise  and  blame  for  individual 
actions.  Its  purpose  is  the  development  of  the  highest 
life,  both  in  the  individual  and  in  the  social  organism. 
When  it  has  achieved  this  result  in  the  individual  as  far  as  ^,„^^ 

it  is  possible,  by  his  conversion  to  pleasurable  and  voluntary  '    , 

right  action,  shall  it  be  said  that  it  is  no  longer  operative 
in  his  life  ?     Let  it  rather  be  recognized  that  therein  it  is  ^ 

completely  operative.  <^ 

Another  objection  often  raised  against  the  evolutionary  v  V 
ethics,  is  that  it  fails  to  recognize  the  freedom  of  the  will.  jv 
In  this  freedom,  it  is  said,  resides  the  sole  opportunity  for 
moral  action.  In  the  light  of  the  facts  of  moral  develop- 
ment, the  conception  of  uncaused  volition  in  man  is  evidently 
untenable.  This  conception,  indeed,  has  no  logical  founda- 
tion in  theory,  save  as  it  is  connected  with  some  hypothesis 
of  a  pre-existent  will  or  ego  —  and  of  this  we  have  no  evi- 
dence in  nature,  nor  in  the  observed  facts  of  a  rational 
psychology.  The  names  of  eminent  thinkers  of  the  meta- 
physical school  may  indeed  be  marshalled  in  the  support  of 
this  dogma  —  Bruno,  Leibniz,  Eosmini-Serbati,  Kant,  Lotze 
and  others,  as  well  as  the  Oriental  sages  of  this  and  by-gone 
generations  ;  but  it  is  a  doctrine  evidently  manufactured  to 
sustain  certain  metaphysical  assumptions  concerning  the 
nature  of  the  soul  and  conscience,  rather  than  a  conclusion 
deduced  from  the  scientific  examination  of  man's  mental 
constitution,  unbiassed  by  metaphysical  pre-judgments.  It 
is  contradicted  by  the  unquestioned  facts  of  heredity,  and 
by  all  the  accessible  data  of  a  rational  psychology.  Kant 
rests  his  doctrine  of  moral  responsibility  upon  the  assump- 
tion of  a  pre-existent  will  —  thus  making  the  individual  -^ 
man  rather  than  his  parents,  ancestors  or  the  circumstances  J 
of  his  environment  responsible  for  his  nature.  He  admits, 
however,  that  man  is  free  to  act  only  in  accordance  with 


c 


276  Evolution  of  Morals. 

his  nature.  "  All  human  actions,"  he  says,  "  are  determined 
according  to  the  order  of  Nature  by  the  empirical  character 
and  the  co-operating  conditions."  From  a  knowledge  of 
these,  he  admits,  "they  might  be  foretold  with  certainty, 
and  necessarily  deduced."  He  thus  practically  recognizes 
the  operation  of  cause  and  effect  in  human  action.  The 
conception  of  the  will  as  an  entity,  apart  from  and  superior 
to  the  mental  faculties,  has  no  foundation,  however,  in  the 
observed  phenomena  of  mind  which  constitute  the  data  of 
mental  and  moral  science.  ''  Moreover,  as  the  sanctions  of 
evolutionary  ethics  inhere  in  the  nature  of  things,  they 
operate  on  alL  minds,  irrespective  of  their  theoretical  judg- 
ments.A  Hence,  the  importance  of  belief  in  the  freedom  of 
the  will  seems  to  be  greatly  over-estimated  by  its  advocates. 
The  will,  as  defined  and  recognized  by  the  new  ethics,  is 
an  inseparable  element  in  all  conscious  adaptations  of  acts 
to  ends.  ''Will,  or  volition,"  says  Bain,"  "comprises  all 
the  actions  of  human  beings,  in  so  far  as  guided  by  feel- 
ings."* "Volition,"  says  John  Fiske,  more  tersely,  "is"  "1 
the  process  whereby  feeling  initiates  action.  *  *  The  will 
is  not  an  entity,  but  a  dynamic  process."  t  It  is  therefore, 
as  Dr.  Eccles  has  pointed  out,  an  element  not  only  in  human 
conduct,  but  in  the  conscious  activities  of  all  sentient 
creatures  —  even  the  lowest.  Human  volition,  in  all  sane 
minds,  is  determined  by  rational  and  ascertainable  motives ; 
and  herein  lie  the  chief  means  and  incentives  to  man's 
moral  regeneration.  C  A  new  thought  projected  into  the  T* 
mind,  a  new  point  of  view  held  up  as  a  mirror  in  which 
man  may  regard  the  tendencies  and  results  of  his  actions, 
may  become  the  all-powerful  motive  leading  to  a  revolution^ 
of  conduct.^  All  our  educational  systems,  all  wise  penal  and 
reformatory  methods,  are  based  upon  the  belief  that  normally 
constituted  minds  will  inevitably  respond  to  certain  motives 
by  corresponding  and  predicable  lines  of  action.  Nature 
herself,  indeed,  appears  to  have  acted  in  accordance  with 
this  understanding,  throughout  the  entire  course  of  moral 
evolution ;  and  thus  man  has  been  led  onward  and  upward 
out  of  brute-egoism  toward  the  ideal  of  a  perfect  manhood. 
Man  but  endeavors,  in  the  range  of  the  moral  activities,  to 
substitute  for  the  slow  process  of  natural  selection,  the 
quicker  appeal  to  intelligent  selection  by  means  of  legisla- 
tive enactments,  education,  and  volitional  effort.  In  the 
*  Bain's  Moral  Science.       fFiske's  Cosmic  Philosophy. 


Evolution  of  Morals. 


277 


t 


natural  and  causal  sequence  of  motive  and  action,  and  the 
relation  of  motives  to  their  logical  antecedents  in  thought, 
we  note  the  only  possible  conditions  for  improving  man's 
moral  nature. 

Is  human  conduct  therefore  necessitated  ?  Yes :  but  by 
the  nature  of  man's  own  being — by  no  external  force;  and 
this  nature  is  therefore  largely,  though  not  exclusively,  of 
his  own  making.  The  motives  which  govern  his  action  are 
a  part  of  his  essential  being.  He  necessitates  himself,  Avhich 
is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  he  acts  as  he  freely  wills 
to  act.  In  obedience  to  law,  in  voluntary  conformity  to 
the  nature  of  things,  he  finds  the  only  possible  reality  and 
exercise  of  freedom.  Having  arrived  at  an  intelligent  con- 
ception of  the  laws  of  conduct,  of  the  end  and  logical  results 
of  his  voluntary  actions,  he  is  no  mere  automaton  or  machine 
l^layed  upon  by  external  forces.  He  has  developed  a  gen- 
uine, though  limited  autonomy,  and  may  justly  be  held 
responsible  for  his  moral  conduct. 

Kant  sees  nothing  but  pure  determinatiori.  in  the  concep- 
tion of  conduct  as  governed'hy  motives!  He  compares  it 
to  the  action  of  a  balance  and  its  weights.  Professor  Schur- 
man  thus  aptly  replies  to  his  argument :  "  Whoever  reflects 
that  a  motive  is  merely  an  idea,  and  that  an  idea  has  no  ex- 
istence apart  from  the  subject  that  has  it,  must  object  to 
the  comparison  of  a  man  and  his  motives  to  a  balance  and 
its  weights.  The  former  is  merely  an  ideal,  the  latter  a 
real  duality.  Man  is  nothing  apart  from  his  ideas ;  but  the 
weights  and  balance  have  each  an  independent  existence. 
Thvis,  volition,  or  willing  according  to  motives,  is  by  no 
means  a  necessitation.  And  it  was  here  that  Kant  failed 
to  see  the  full  significance  of  his  fundamental  notion,  while 
contending  for  an  empty  shadow  which  was  scarcely  the 
ghost  of  a  living  freedom.  If  freedom  be  not  found  in  our 
volition  with  motives  and  not  without  them,  it  dwells  not 
with  man,  it  is  nowhere  to  be  found."  *  Man's  conduct 
being  necessitated  from  within,  not  from  without,  under 
the  law  of  motive,  he  has,  if  we  mistake  not,  a  real  freedom 
of  action,  though  it  is  something  quite  different  from  the 
uncaused  volition  which  is  assumed  by  the  advocates  of  the 
doctrine  that  the  will  is  a  pre-existent  entity. 

A  fine  reconciliation  of  intuitional  with  utilitarian  ethics 
is  discoverable  in  the  perception  of  the  identity  in  charac- 

*  Schurman's  Kantiau  Ethics,  and  the  Ethics  of  Evolution. 


278  Evolution  of  Morals. 

ter  of  the  moral  law  with  all  natural  laws,  and  the  logical 
inference  that  though  discovered  inductively  and  through 
experience,  it  is  universal  in  its  scope  and  operation,  un- 
limited by  social  conventions  or  individual  intelligence.  As^ 
the  law  of  gravity  operated  eternally  before  its  discovery  \ 
and  definition  by  Newton,  so  the  condition  of  things  ex-  i 
pressed  by  the  moral  imperative  has  operated  during  the  I 
entire  coixrse  of  human  history  and  biological  evolution./ 
The  scientific  law  of  conduct  is  found  to  be  the  statement 
of  a  fundamental  and  a  priori  condition  of  the   highest 
development  of  individual  character  and  social  activities. 
The  impulse  to  right  action  appears  in  truth  as  a  "categori- 
cal imperative,"  not  alone  in  the  consciousness  of  man,  but 
in  the  constitution  of  the  universe  —  oj^erating  in  man  to 
create  the  individual  conscience,  and  everywhere  revealing 
itself  as  the  condition  precedent  to  all  social  and  moral  ad- 
vancement, on  which  individual  character  and  harmonious 
communities  depend.     ''The  rule  of  right,  the  symmetries 
of  character,  the  requirements  of  perfection,  are  no  provin- 
cialisms of  this  planet :  they  are  known  among  the  stars ; 
they  reign  beyond  Orion  and  the  Southern  Cross ;  they  are 
wherever  the  Universal  Spirit  is;    and  no   subject-minrl, 
though  it  fly  on  one  track  forever,  can  escape  beyond  their 
bounds."  * 

As  all  moral  acts  are  life-promoting  acts,  it  is  the  essen- 
tial nature  of  immorality  to  be  destructive  —  suicidal.  The 
penalty  of  evil  conduct  is  the  instant  and  immediate  atrophy 
of  character ;  if  persisted  in,  it  is  both  moral  and  physical 
death.  Salvation,  therefore,  is  rationally  identical  with 
character-building;  but  character  means  more  than  mere 
goodness;  it  means  fulness  of  life, —  the  cultivation  of 
every  manly  and  womanly  faculty, —  the  devotion  of  the 
life  to  human  welfare. 

Evolutionary  ethics  respects  the  individual.  It  makes 
perfection  of  individual  character  the  supreme  end,  seeing 
that  thus  only  can  society  be  perfected.  Society  is  indeed 
regarded  as  an  organism,!  but  the  individual  is  to  society 


♦  Martineau's  A  Study  of  Religion. 

t  The  social  organism  differs  from  the  lower  forms  of  organic  life  in  an  impor- 
tant particular: — in  the  latter,  the  cell,  or  unit,  appears  to  exist  for  the  sake  of 
the  organism ;  while  in  the  former,  the  organism  appears  to  exist  for  the  sake 
of  the  indi\'idual  or  unit.  In  all  organisms,  however,  the  perfection  of  ceU-life 
appears  to  go  along  with  the  perfection  of  the  organic  structure.  The  resem- 
blances between  social  and  organic  gro-wth  seem  to  be  suflBciently  striking  to 
justify  the  use  of  the  term  "  social  organism." 


Evolution  of  Morals.  279 

what  the  cell  is  to  vital  tissue :  the  more  perfect  the  cell, 
the  healthier  is  the  tissue.  Obliterate  the  individuality  of 
the  cell,  and  all  high  organization  is  impossible.  The  com- 
munistic idea  would  subordinate  the  individual  to  society, 
—  to  humanity  in  general.  It  would  sacrifice  the  living 
man  to  an  abstraction.  The  ultimate  tendency  of  this  ideal 
is  toward  the  obliteration  of  individuality  —  the  establish- 
ment of  homogeneity  of  character  and  intellect,  the  fossil- 
ization  of  social  instincts  and  activities  through  individual 
conformity  and  inactivity,  thus  defeating  its  avowed  end 
and  aim.  This  tendency  is  opposed  to  the  entire  trend  of 
evolution,  which  constantly  tends  to  differentiation,  hetero- 
geneity, individualism,  progress.  Whenever  the  communis- 
tic ideal  becomes  dominant,  society  is  arrested  in  its  develop- 
ment or  hastens  to  decay.  Communism  is  the  sure  precursor 
of  social  disintegration  and  death ;  it  is  a  reversion  to  the 
earliest  social  status  of  uncivilized  man.  After  communism, 
by  a  natural  reaction,  comes  anarchy ;  and  anarchy  lived 
out  is  social  dissolution.  This  result  can  only  be  prevented 
by  respect  for  the  rights  and  personality  of  the  individual, 
and  respect  by  the  individual  for  the  laws  of  conduct  as 
determined  by  the  science  of  morals.  Voluntary  co-opera- 
tion instead  of  legislative  communism  constitutes  the  social 
ideal  prophetically  outlined  by  the  study  of  the  principles 
underlying  the  entire  process  of  ethical  and  social  evolution. 
The  liberation  of  the  individual  —  his  increasing  freedom 
to  secure  the  satisfactions  consequent  upon  the  natural  and 
harmonious  use  of  all  his  faculties  —  proceeds  lyari  passxi 
with  an  increasing  dependence  on  society  in  general.  Thus 
society  integrates  by  a  natural  process  of  growth,  forming 
a  real  brotherhood  of  consent,  instead  of  a  militant  organi- 
zation, consolidated  by  external  coercion.  The  condition 
of  society  involved  in  this  ideal  is  one  in  which  each  indi- 
vidual shall  have  full  opportunity  for  the  development  of 
his  whole  nature,  and  to  which  each  shall  freely  contribute 
his  noblest  and  most  conscientious  service. 

Among  the  hills  of  old  Berkshire,  there  is  a  noble  birch 
tree,  gigantic  in  trunk  and  limb,  and  abundant  in  foliage, 
which  towers  above  its  neighboring  companions,  but  grows, 
apparently,  out  of  an  immense  granite  bowlder  which  was 
deposited  centuries  ago,  where  it  now  rests,  by  the  action  of 
a  mighty  glacier  whose  resistless  energy  had  borne  it  from 
some  far-away  mountain  summit.     Beneath  the  rock  the 


280  Evolution  of  Morals. 

earliest  tiny  rootlets  of  the  tree  found  soil  and  nourishment : 
its  first  tender  shoot  sprung  up  into  some  small  crevice  in 
the  great  bowlder  above  them.  Here,  one  might  think,  it 
would  have  paused,  submitting  to  the  adamantine  pressure, 
either  crushed  utterly  to  the  earth,  or  dwarfed  and  deformed 
by  its  unyielding  environment.  But  it  had  the  irresistable 
evolutionary  forces  of  Nature  behind  it ;  the  sunlight  above 
wooed  it  from  its  prison-house  —  it  pushed  upward  toward 
the  light.  Gradually  the  little  crevice  in  the  rock  was 
widened,  the  great  bowlder  was  split  asunder  as  by  the 
hammer  of  Thor, —  the  noble  tree,  scarcely  distorted  by  the 
struggle,  protected  from  destructive  storms  by  its  conquered 
enemy,  grew  with  the  years,  and  spread  abroad  on  every 
side  its  leafy  beauty  and  the  blessing  of  its  grateful  shade. 
So  conscience  —  the  moral  sense  —  a  little  germ  at  first, 
inclosed  in  the  hard  shell  of  the  natural  instincts,  struggling 
against  the  mighty  bowlder  of  animalism,  has  at  last  split 
the  obstacle  in  twain,  and  emerged  to  bless  the  world  and 
justify  the  method  which  has  given  it  birth.  And  the  In- 
finite Energy,  one  in  the  misty  nebula  and  the  glowing  sun, 
in  rock  and  tree  and  animal,  and  in  the  mind  and  conscience 
of  man,  "  saw  everything  that  it  had  made,  and  behold,  it 
was  very  good." 


Evolution  of  Morals.  281 


•  ABSTRACT    OF    THE    DISCUSSION. 

Pkofessoe  Thomas  Davidson:  — 

The  fact  that  I  was  invited  to  open  this  discussion  with  the  full 
knowledge  that  the  frankest  dissent  might  be  expected  of  me,  in- 
dicates a  high  degree  of  moral  evolution  on  the  part  of  the  man- 
agers of  this  course  of  lectures.  The  limited  time,  however,  places 
me  at  a  disadvantage,  speaking  as  I  do  to  an  audience  made  up  of 
those  who  agree  with  the  able  lecture  of  Dr.  Janes.  I  object  not 
so  much  to  the  observed  facts  of  Evolution,  as  to  its  theory  about 
them.  I  object  to  the  presupposition  that  there  is  no  knowledge 
outside  of  expei'ience.  Man's  aim,  according  to  the  evolution 
philosophy,  is  to  serve  an  abstract  humanity,  without  any  reward 
therefor.  Evolution,  the  lecturer  declares,  is  a  tendency  which 
has  been  observed  in  Nature  —  a  purposeful  tendency  —  a  tendency 
to  "fulness  of  life."  The  lecturer,  however,  has  failed  to  de- 
fine what  life  is.  The  assumption  that  there  is  no  knowledge 
outside  of  experience  is  not  due  to  evolutionary  thought,  but  to  a 
negation  of  thought.  The  effort  to  erect  a  philosophy  on  this 
basis  is  due  to  a  reactionary  impulse  in  thought  which  must  be 
short  lived.  Evolutionists  declare  that  there  ai-e  three  stages  in 
the  development  of  thought,  the  theologic,  the  metaphysical  and 
the  scientific.  One  would  think  that  the  metaphysical  stage, 
being  so  much  in  advance  of  the  theological,  would  be  treated  with 
respect,  but  on  the  contrary  it  is  treated  with  contempt  and  abuse. 
John  Stuart  Mill,  who  was  a  devoted  adherent  of  this  philosophy, 
was  one  of  a  class  whom  we  may  call  "  metaphysical-phobists." 
Now,  metaphysics  is  in  bad  repute  principally  on  account  of  the 
shallowness  of  thought  and  narrowness  of  reading  of  these  meta- 
physical-phobists who  are  now  so  popular.  Evolutionists  know 
nothing  of  metaphysics.  What  do  they  know  of  Aristotle,  of  the 
Neo-Platonists,  of  Thomas  Aquinas  ?  We  do  not  get  all  our  own 
knowledge  from  experience.  The  assertion  that  we  know  nothing 
of  the  spiritual  which  is  not  revealed  in  experience  is  due  to  pure 
prejudice.  Dr.  Janes  indeed  speaks  of  a  "Universal  Spirit"  with 
a  purpose,  and  this  is  essentially  a  theological  conception.  And 
this  "fulness  of  life,"  —  what  does  it  mean?  Does  it  mean  the 
maintenance  of  all  life  —  the  life  of  "all  sentient  creatures,"  or  of 


282  Evolution  of  Morals. 

man  only  ?  Wliat  are  we  to  do  •with  the  gnats  and  mosquitoes,  for 
instance  ?  "  Fulness  of  life  "  is  a  veiy  vague  phrase  for  a  summum 
bonum.  In  mere  mechanism  there  is  no  tendency  either  to  good 
or  evil.  Then,  according  to  this  philosophy,  the  moment  this  ten- 
dency gets  where  it  can  be  of  use,  the  moment  it  gets  into  life,  it 
errs.  "Fulness  of  life"  is  defined  as  "subjective  satisfactioiti." 
But  animals  have  no  morality,  yet  they  seek  this  satisfaction. 
Carnivorous  animals  destroy  "fulness  of  life"  in  seeking  this  sat- 
isfaction. Only  the  satisfaction  of  intelligence,  without  reference 
to  pleasure,  shows  the  moral.  Evolution  puts  the  cart  before  the 
horse.  The  moral  sense  inherent  in  the  constitution  of  man  has 
developed  morality,  not  physical  changes  and  social  necessities. 
If  environment  produces  morality,  why  are  not  animals  moral  ? 
It  is  the  fundamental  moral  faculty  that  is  the  cause  of  moral 
development. 

Eev.  John  W.  Chadwick:  — 

I  am  surprised  at  Professor  Davidson's  torrent  of  negation.  I 
had  hoped  that  he  would  give  some  reasons  for  the  faith  that  is 
in  him.  I  will  not  speak  at  length  in  reply  to  his  statements,  from 
which  I  dissent,  preferring  to  give  as  much  time  as  possible  to  Dr. 
Janes. 

Mb.  Thomas  Gabdneb: — 

I  find  myself  thoroughly  in  accord  with  Dr.  Janes  in  his  treat- 
ment of  this  question.  I  cannot  understand  how  an  intelligent 
man  can  ascribe  the  rejection  of  the  metaphysical  philosophy,  by 
leading  scientific  men,  to  their  ignorance  of  the  literature  of  that 
school  of  thought.  Certainly  Spencer  and  Huxley,  and  others  of 
the  Evolution  school,  have  shown  abundant  knowledge  of  meta- 
physics. If  I  were  to  criticise  Dr.  Janes' s  able  paper,  it  would  be 
in  that  he  has  omitted  the  admiration  of  the  heroic  and  the  love 
of  the  beautiful  in  considering  the  influences  which  led  to  the 
evolution  of  morals.  These  influences  were  of  great  importance, 
it  appears  to  me. 

Mb.  Nelson  J.  Gates:  — 

I  regret  that  Professor  Davidson  made  no  definite  affirmations 
in  expressing  his  dissent  from  Dr.  Janes' s  paper.  Evolution  holds 
that  morals  are  developed  from  within,  from  the  very  constitution 
of  things.  But  all  ethical  theories  must  be  tested  by  experience. 
The  theory  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Movuit  was  evolved  from  a  con- 
sideration of  the  static  relations  of  human  society,  but  it  has  been 


Evolution  of  Morals.  283 

rejected  by  experience.  Take,  for  example,  the  command,  "Who- 
soever shall  smite  thee  on  the  right  cheek,  turn  to  him  the  other 
also."     We  all  agree  in  rejecting  such  a  rule  as  impracticable. 

Professor  P.  H.  van  der  Weyde: — 

Professor  Davidson  has  said  that  evolutionists  are  ignorant  of 
metaphysics,  but  it  is  my  experience  that  metaphysicians  are  all 
ignorant  of  the  simplest  principles  of  physics.  Now  it  seems  to 
me  that  metaphysics  must  be  based  on  physics.  The  material 
world  should  be  the  first  subject  of  study,  but  this  is  neglected  by 
metaphysicians,  who  are  far  more  open  to  the  charge  of  ignorance 
of  physics  than  are  the  scientists  to  the  charge  of  want  of  knowl- 
edge of  metaphysics. 

De.  Kobert  G.  Eccles:  — 

Professor  Davidson  declares  that  evolutionists  have  metaphysi- 
cal-phobia; but  he  has  evidently  come  in  contact  with  Comteists 
rather  than  with  Spencerians.  Evolution  has  no  contempt  for 
metaphysics.  On  the  contrary,  it  admits  a  measure  of  truth  in 
all  systems  of  thought,  and  desires  to  harmonize  the  truths  of 
varying  systems  into  a  synthetic  philosophy.  Professor  Davidson 
cannot  get  back  of  phenomena,  nor  can  any  metaphysician,  however 
boldly  he  may  proclaim  his  ability  to  do  so.  The  ' '  fulness  of 
life,"  which  he  criticises,  means  adjustment;  it  means  the  perfec- 
tion or  correspondence  between  inner  relations  and  outer  relations, 
between  organization  and  environment. 

De.  Jakes: — 

I  regard  it  as  a  high  compliment  to  be  criticised  by  Professor 
Davidson,  one  of  the  ablest  metaphysicians,  without  doubt,  in 
this  country.  And  if  his  criticism  has  taken  the  form,  mainly,  of 
unverified  assertion  and  barren  negation,  its  weakness  is  a  defect 
in  the  method  of  metaphysics,  not  in  the  man.  Evolution,  as  Dr. 
Eccles  has  said,  recognizes  that  all  systems  of  thought  contain 
some  truth,  and  explains  also  why  this  must  be  so.  The  human 
mind  can  but  reflect,  in  some  degree,  the  ti'uth  of  that  Universe 
out  of  which  it  has  been  evolved.  Metaphysical  assumption, 
however,  should  be  verified  by  experiential  tests.  Since  all  thought 
is  a  part  of  experience,  I  confess  I  am  imable  to  see  how  we  can 
have  any  extra-experiential  knowledge.  It  seems  to  me  that  my 
critic  descended  from  his  usual  high  plane  of  thought  in  raising 
the  questions  about  gnats,  mosquitoes  and  carnivorous  animals. 
I  think  the  principle  which  I  laid  down  is  clear  to  all  unprejudiced 


284 


Evolution  of  Morals. 


minds :  we  are  bound  to  preserve  and  sustain  life  in  all  creatures 
which  do  not  interfere  with  or  detract  from  fulness  of  life  in  the 
totality  of  things  —  taking  into  account,  of  course,  the  quality  of 
life  as  judged  by  an  evolutionary  standard.  This  law  makes  it 
our  duty  to  destroy  those  creatures  which  impede  human  advance- 
ment, as  it  is  our  duty  to  exercise  protection  and  kindness  toward 
our  poor  relations  of  the  animal  world,  who  are  helpers  of  man- 
kind. Animals,  indeed,  are  not  moral,  as  I  have  declared.  Neither 
was  primitive  man.  But  animals  are  on  the  road  toward  the 
moral.  The  moral  is  but  man's  self-conscious  recognition  of  laws 
that  reach  all  the  way  down,  through  the  brute  to  inanimate 
nature.  I  fail  to  see  that  the  moral  sense  is  in  any  way  discredited 
by  being  explained,  as  the  intuitionalists  assume.  The  evolutionary 
sanctions  of  morality  seem  to  me  quite  as  imperative  as  those, of 
the  metaphysicians. 


<'^*Mi4o 


COLLATERAL    READINGS 


IN   COXXECTION  "WITH    ESSAY   XI, 


/  Spencer's  Psychology,  Data  of  Ethics,  and  Ethics  of  Kant  (in 
Fortnightly  Bevieio,  July,  1888,  and  Popular  Science  Monthly,  Sei> 
tember,  1888) ;  Fiske's  Cosmic  Philosophy ;  Bain's  Moral  Science  ; 
Staniland  Wake's  Evolution  of  Morality  ;  Savage's  Morals  of  Evo- 
lution ;  Thompson's  Problem  of  Evil ;  Schnrman' s Kantian  Ethics 
and  Ethics  of  Evolution,  and  Ethical  Import  of  Barunnism ;  Clif- 
ford's Scientific  Basis  of  Morals  (in  Contemporary  Review,  Septem- 
ber, 1875);  Sheldon  Amos' s  Science  of  Laio ;  Dr.  C.  C.  Everett's 
Essay  on  The  New  Ethics  (in  Unitarian  Eeview,  October,  1878) ; 
Frances  Power  Cobbe'  s  Darwinism  in  Morals ;  On  a  Moral  Sense, 
in  Darwin's  Descent  of  Man. 


Popular  Works  on  the  Evolution  Basis. 

The  Morals  of  Evolution.  By  M.  J.  Savage.  191  pages,  $1.00. 
Treats  such  topics  as  The  Origin  of  Goodness,  The  Nature  of  Goodness,  The 
Sense  of  Obligation,  The  Relativity  of  Duty,  Morality  and  Religion  in  the  Fu- 
ture, etc.,  etc.  "We  all  owe  Mr.  Savage  thanks  for  the  earnestness,  franlcness, 
and  abilitv  with  which  he  has  here  illustrated  the  modem  scientific  methods  of 
dealing  with  historv,  philosophy,  and  morality."  "The  book  is  a  fund  of  intel- 
lectualand  moral  cneer." 

Science  and  Immortality.    Cloth,  75  cents  ;  paper,  50  cents. 

A  "  Symposium,"  giving  the  opinion  of  many  of  the  most  prominent  scientific 
men  in  this  country  concerning  the  relation  of  science  to  the  question  of  im- 
mortality. Concise,  candid,  the  earnest  thought  of  the  foremost  thinkers  of 
tiie  day,  whether  of  expectation  or  of  doubt. 

The  Faith  of  Reason.  By  JoHX  W.  Chadwick.  254  pages,  $1.00. 
A  series  of  Discourses  on  the  Leading  Topics  of  Religion :  The  Nature  of  Re- 
ligion, God,  Immortality,  Prayer,  Morals.  "  Free,  original,  brave,  manly  speech 
is  here ;  never  prosv,  always  earnest,  often  curiously  apt,  and  sometimes  swell- 
ing with  its  theme  Into  fervid  eloquence."  "  A  book  that  inspires  courage,  that 
makes  a  man  think,  that  makes  a  man  glad,  that  makes  a  man  willing  to  sac- 
rifice something,  if  need  be,  that  the  Truth  may  be  still  more  spread." 

Creed  and  Deed.      By  Felix  Abler.      A  series  of  Essays  from 
the  standpoint  of  Ethical  Culture.     $1.00. 
Includes  essavs  on  Immortality,  Religion,  Spinoza,  The  Founder  of  Christi- 
anity, Reformed  Judaism,  and  others.     "Mr.  Adler  is  always  strong,  always 
progressive,  a  thought-awakener,  a  worker,  and  practical." 

The  Evolution  of  Immortality.     Suggestions  of  an  Individual  Im- 
mortality, based  upon  our  Organic  and  Life  History.     By  C.  T. 
Stockwell.     Cloth,   12mo,  gilt  top,  iincut  edges,  69  pages, 
$1.00. 
One  of  the  most  suggestive  and  best  developed  essays  on  personal  immortal- 
ity which  later  years  nave  produced.— iiterary  World. 

Uplifts  of  Heart  and  Will.      A  Series  of  Religious  Meditations, 

or  Aspirations.     Addressed  to  Earnest  Men  and  Women.      By 

James  H.  West.     Cloth,  square  18mo.,  beveled  edges.    Price, 

postpaid,  50  cents. 

"  On  purely  rational  grounds  it  is  not  easy  to  meet  the  position  [of  this  little 

book],  except  by  saying  that  the  words  and  forms  of  our  [usual]  devotion  must 

be  accepted  as  frankly  symbolic,  and  rwt  amemtble  to  the  under  standing. 

*  *  *  It  is  good  to  welcome  a  religious  science  better  than  the  old  hard  bigotry. 

Still,  while  we  by  no  means  accept  these  'Uplifts'  as  a  necessarj-  or  an  adequate 

substitute  for  tlie  customary  exercises  of  devotion,  they  are  at  least  better  ntted 

than  the  ordinary  practice  to  a  state  of  mind  far  from  uncommon,  and  greatly 

deserving  of  respect."— J^rorn.  a  seven-paffe  notice  in  the  Unitarian  Review. 

Evolution  :  A  Summary  of  Evidence.    By  Capt.  Eobt.  C.  Adams, 
Author    of    "Travels    in   Faith  from  Tradition  to  Reason." 
Pamphlet,  44  pages,  25  cents. 
"An  admirable  presentation  and  summing  up  of  the  Evolution  Argument." 

Man,  Woman  and  Child.    By  M.  J.  Savage.     200  pages,  $1.00. 

A  book  on  marriage,  divorce,  the  home,  the  education  of  sons  and  daughters, 
the  rights  of  women,  the  duties  and  opportunities  of  all.  "  No  one  can  read  it 
without  breadth  of  view,  without  a  growinc  sjnnpatlfy  and  tenderness,  without 
resolves  to  be  a  better  man  or  woman,  worthier  to  love  and  be  loved." 

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The  New  Ideal  Company. 


THE  Hew  ideah. 


CONTENTS  FOB  SEPTEMBER,   1SS9. 


Editokiai- — 

General  Topics:  Jottings;  "Tacking  towards  Socialism"; 
The  Potential,  not  the  Imperative;  "  A  Brotherhood  of 
Consent";  The  Single-Tax  Idea;  One  of  Two  Things; 
The  Vision  of  Co-operation;  Once  a  Minister  —  with  a 
Memory  of  the  Haymarket;  "IIow  to  Lessen  Poverty"; 
The  Unitarian  Opportunity;  Not  Caesar  less,  but  Rome 
more, 145 

The  F.  11.  A.  and  Social  Reform, 147 

Special  Contributions  — 

What  the  F.  R.  A.  might  Do, Wm.  J.  Potter    148 

The  F.  R.  A.  and  Social  Reform, O.  B.  Frothingham    149 

General  Contributions  — 

Nationalism  or  Individualism  ?. . .  Br.  Edmund  Montgomery  150 

Freedom  or  Liberty, Laurence  Gronlund  151 

Woman  and  Current  Reforms, Elizabeth  B.  Chace  152 

IIow  to  Lessen  Poverty,  I., F.  M.  Holland  153 

A  Brotherhood  of  Consent, Dr.  Lewis  G.  Janes  155 

Light :    Poem, Elissa  M.  Moore  155 

A  Recollection, Sylvan  Drey  155 

The  Philosophy  of  Free  Religion,  VL,  ..F.E.  Abbot,  Ph.D  156 

Composite  Human  Nature Wm.  G.  Babcock  158 

Whether  a  New  Religion  or  Not  ? Chas.  D.  B.  Mills  158 

Correspondence  — 

The  Naturalistic  Foundations  of  Nationalism, 

Dr.  Edmund  Montgomery    159 

The  Top  of  the  Coach Dr.C.T.  Stockwell     159 

Those  Shady  Summer  Homes, 159 

Book  Reviews  — 

True  Manhood ;  An  Old  Religion, 160 

Notes — 
The  Single-Tax  Man  and  the  Clergyman  ;  The  Monument 

to  Bruno;  Said  of  The  New  Ideal, 160 

Back  Numbers, ii 

(Over,) 


"  Our  part  is  to  conspire  with  the  new  works  of  new  days." 

Emerson.  

Social    Science   and   a   Rational   Religion. 

THE   NEW  IDEAL. 

A  Journal  of  Constructive  Liberal  Thought  and  Ap- 
plied Ethics. 


Editok, 


Wm.  J.  Potter, 

T.  W.  Curtis, 
O.  B.  Frothingham, 

Dr.  Lewis  G.  Janes, 
Chas.  D.  B.  Mills, 

AVm.  M.  Salter, 
MoNCURE  I).  Conway, 

S.  BAIRNS  Weston, 
Dr.  C.  T.  Stockwell, 

P^nwiN  D.  Mead, 
A.  N.  Adams, 


James  H.  West. 


CONTRIBUTORS. 

B.  F.  Underwood, 

Laurence  Gronldnd, 
Horace  L.  Traubel, 

Charles  K.  Whipple, 
Elissa  M.  Moore, 

Capt.  Robert  C.  Adams, 
Geo.  W.  Buckley, 

Perry  Marshall, 
Frederic  A.  Hinckley, 

Fred.  May  Holland, 
Elizabeth  B.  Chace, 


Francis  E.  AtfBdT,  Ph.D., 

Geo.  H.  Hadley, 
Mrs.  Ednah  D.  Cheney, 

E.  P.  Powell, 
Hon.  Geo.  F.  Talbot, 

Rowland  Connor, 
Mrs.  S.  A.  Underwood, 

M.  J.  Savage, 
Dr.  Edm.  Montoomery, 

B.  W.  Ball. 
J.  C.  F.  Grumbine. 


The  object  of  The  New  Ideal  is  the  discovery  and  propagation 
of  consti'uctive  liberal  thought,  and  the  application  of  modern 
etliical  ideals  to  the  increasing  i>roblems  of  human  need. 


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Single  Number,  20  cents. 


What  is  said  of  "  The  New  Ideal." 

From  Rev.  J.  C.  F.  Grumbine,  Oneonta, 
N.Y. — "I  am  in  thorough  sympathy  with 
you  and  your  work.  The  Neav  Ideal  is  the 
brilliant  and  able  exponent  of  that  order  of 
society  which  is  yet  to  dawn  upon  the  world, 
—  if  not  by  and  through  the  church,  then  in 
spite  of  her.  The  Christian  church,  repre- 
sentative of  egotism,  is,  I  fear,  overwhelmed 
by  plutocrats  who  are  sinking  her  into  all 
manner  of  degeneracy.  Thank  you  for  the 
bugle  call  to  duty,  which  comes  like  the  thun- 
der from  some  real  Mt.  Sinai.  May  it  never 
cease  until  victory  is  ours  and  humanity's. 
Such  i^eriodicals  as  The  New  Ideal  repre- 
sent the  light  of  the  world  —  the  salt  of  the 
earth." 

Address  The  Neav  Ideal, 
Estes  Press  Building,  192  Summer  st.,  Boston,  Mass. 


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